


Enemies of a Different Nature

by LauraDoloresIssum



Series: Dying Light [5]
Category: Dying Light (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 15:58:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19403623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraDoloresIssum/pseuds/LauraDoloresIssum
Summary: Kyle and Crane get through their first few days as a team. Kyle comes face to face with Rais. Some iconic clothing is procured.





	Enemies of a Different Nature

Crane squatted on the rooftop, sun beating down on him, binoculars to his eyes. Zombies shuffled and grasped several stories below. He hadn’t been spotted by any Ferals on the way into the Caldera or come across Rais’s men. Occasionally on the radio, he heard the chatter of other runners setting up chokepoints and traps.

He scanned the horizon for the outline of a plane. The sun was ticking closer and closer to the horizon. The lengthening shadows were a constant tug on his brain. He checked his digital watch. 19:03. The double drop was scheduled around 19:05.

Crunching and scuffling at his five. He must have attracted a Feral. He dropped the binoculars and whirled.

The GRE agent froze, Crane’s knife inches from his scarred-up face. “Whoa there.”

“What do you want?”

He rubbed the light brown scrub on his chin. “I just wanted to help out, man. Aren’t we supposed to be working together now?”

Crane’s eyes flicked left. Red smoke, there, between the buildings. “So try to keep up.”

He took off across the rooftops, vaulting railings and hoisting himself up walls as quickly as he could. He was slightly appeased to hear Kyle, albeit much more noisily, keeping pace with him. The Caldera was tight-packed, so it was easy to stay above grabbing range. They came upon the airdrop, a white-and-orange parachute dangling over half the roof.

“Get the box.”

Kyle started sorting through labeled, tightly wrapped bundles, stuffing them in his pockets.

“Food, water, flares, sterile gauze, antibiotics, mosquito netting, rechargeable batteries. Shit. I’m not seeing any Antizin.”

“Next drop, then.” Crane tied the parachute around his waist.

“Listen…”

“What?”

“I just wanted to say, thanks for not killing me. You seem like a decent person. And for whatever it’s worth, I intend to prove you wrong about the GRE. I’ve done relief work for them before. I’ve worked for a lot of big NGOs, I was in the Peace Corps for a while and after that I did some work for the Red Cross and Amnesty International. NGOs are condescending or incompetent sometimes, but they’d never take advantage of people the way you’re describing. It just doesn’t make sense. I’m not naïve or anything, I’m not even saying they wouldn’t, I’m just saying it wouldn’t be practical.”

He caught the next airdrop, far away, on the other side of the Tower, nearer to the bay. Golden light glinted off the water. The sky was starting to darken. “Alright. Keep talking.”

They dropped to the ground. Crane ducked out of the way as a zombie reached for him, and Kyle gave it a firm kick to the chest. It sprawled on the graffittied pavement, and groaned loudly. They were up and over a fence before five others congregated around it, shuffling and looking around.

“Any NGO wants to fix the problem they’re there for and move on as quickly as possible, because spending too much time on one thing tanks their balance sheets.”

Kyle carefully lowered a plank bridge across two concrete roofs and tested it with his foot. Above them, filthy water dripped from the underside of the highway.

“Donations and volunteers are thick for a while, but after that initial influx they start to run dry fast. Businesses want an ROI, governments get backlash for not spending money on their own people, and individuals are passionate about a humanitarian crisis for about a week and then move on to other things. So the GRE wouldn’t purposefully maintain a disaster area they were responsible for cleaning up. They’re not a nonprofit, they’re here to make money.”

They clambered a white corrugated fence, trying not to clang. Crane landed next to him. “There’s a problem with your story. The GRE’s drowning in cash. I saw the private security teams they sent in during the Surge. They had some fancy toys. Personal LiDAR scanners, individual biometric uplinks, artificial spider-silk Kevlar. They fielded probably two hundred infantry in that stuff.”

Kyle had a look like he was holding something back. He had an open, honest face that Crane instinctively distrusted.

“There any of it left?” he asked.

“No. Zombies chewed right through them too. Not woven right, probably.” He glanced at the shadows and checked the radio.

“Okay, maybe. You have me at a disadvantage here.” The smell of salt was getting stronger and the ground had begun to slope. There was a zipline that would take them down a good chunk of the way. They sent their heavy bags down first to test it, then followed.

Kyle unhooked himself, flushed and energetic. “But even if they have buckets of money, you can’t deny that they’re flushing it down the toilet pouring it into Harran. Like, no offense, I’ve heard this was a pretty awesome place before the zombies started crawling all over it—”

“It was a shithole,” said Crane firmly. “The laws said we were all equal and free, but the rich got richer all the time and my uncle was shot to death on the street for kissing my cousin in public. The Global Games were supposed to change that, but the rich just got richer on graft and scams. Then the tourists came, clogging up the streets and eating all the food and spending their money on drugs and whores instead of infrastructure. Now it’s nothing but zombies and it’s your shithole now.”

“Fuck, man, I’m sorry.”

They paused on a rooftop, holding up their hands against the sunset. Crane shook his head. “It’s too late. Sun’s already going down. We won’t make it to a safehouse in time.”

“Come on, man, it’s right there!” Kyle pointed to the red smoke only a block and a half away. “We can do this!”

“At night, the real monsters come out. The kind that can rip a person in half. We can come back in the morning.” He took a running jump to the next roof. Kyle was still standing there.

“I’m going for that drop, with or without you,” he called over, keeping his voice low as possible. “We need that Antizin.”

“When you change your mind, you’ll see the safehouse, it’s the one with all the blue lights.” He turned his back and kept going, listening to Kyle’s footsteps fade away. Well, that was one less problem to deal with.

With a grunt, he hauled himself up the wall onto the roof, ringed with powerful UV lamps, and glanced at his watch. It had started to beep warningly. Ten minutes to sundown.

There was a shotgun and a box of ammo by the trapdoor. He grabbed it, got a chair, and waited to be sure. He couldn’t sleep anyway.

When the sun went down completely, you knew, because of the sound. It started as just a few faint screams in the distance, a little too deep to be mistaken for roving ferals. Then, a second wave of voices answered the first. Then all of them at once, until the air was vibrating with them, hundreds, thousands. The nightmares were free. He pictured them crawling out of their caves and collapsed basements with their huge claws, flayed and covered in open sores, their split jaws dangling loosely, spilling saliva down their fronts. He shuddered in disgust. Better to be really dead than turn into one of those things.

He sat stiffly, eyes unfocused, waiting. Had that been a human shriek in the distance?

The minutes ticked past.

The American clambered over the wall and collapsed onto the roof, shuddering, his destroyed climbing rig hanging off him. The back of his jacket had been shredded by a set of massive claws. Amazingly, he still had all his limbs. Crane immediately set the shotgun down and extended a hand to help him up.

“Holy shit. Holy _shit_. Man, you were right. I’m sorry. You were right about everything.” Kyle was muddy like he’d slid down an embankment. He was panting roughly, his eyes massively dilated.

“I usually am.” Crane grabbed his shoulders. “Let’s get you below.”

“Fuck me, what are those things?” Kyle muttered as he lowered himself into the apartment. Crane took a quick glance around and followed, shutting the trapdoor.

The windows were barred on the outside and blacked out with newspaper. The GRE agent collapsed on a chair, still clutching his bag to his chest. Crane grabbed a medical kit, examining his skin and eyes in the unyielding fluorescent glare. “Are you bit? Did they get you?”

“Oh, man, oh, almost. Just my clothes, and my flashlight. Fuck.” He looked around nervously. “Are we safe here?”

Crane nodded, although he didn’t feel much like being reassuring. “The lights are UV. Burns them before they can get close enough to knock them out. Solar panels recharge them during the day, or gennies in the basement. Aldemir had me refuel this one earlier today.”

“Thank god. How the hell have you people survived in a place that’s so massively fucked?”

He applied antiseptic to a nasty scrape down the length of the agent’s arm, working on automatic. He didn’t really know if there was an answer. He knew, mostly, how he had.

“I was assigned to guard an apartment of refugees here in the slums when the outbreak first began. The streets below were full of Ferals, and they were breaking down doors and windows all over the place to drag people out. When a woman’s baby began to draw them, I wrestled it away from her and threw it out the window. Then after several days when we still hadn’t received any orders and the food was running low, I overheard one of my men talking desertion, so I shot him on the spot. When they called last evacuation, I managed to get all of my people into a car. When a policeman pointed a gun at me through the windshield and demanded we all get out, I ran him down, and then I backed over him when he started to get back up.” He looked up at Kyle’s frozen expression. “They made it to the helicopters. I didn’t.”

“Man, that’s…” Kyle shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. That’s so fucked.”

Crane took no offense.

“And the GRE. Man, they’re goddamn Umbrella.” He unzipped his bag, revealing a blue box with a white planet logo on it. He opened it.

Crane allowed a long, slow sigh to sift through his teeth. Antizin. Dozens of bottles of it, packaged in foam. He lifted the layer, and saw another. Enough to keep the entire Tower alive for a month, and then some.

Kyle held up a battered orange portable. “There’s _nine_ more boxes of this stuff back at the drop site.” He nodded at Crane’s stunned expression. “There’s a metric _shit_ -ton. And my handler just told me to destroy it. All of it.”

“ _Why_?”

“To force interaction with that guy Rais, apparently. See if he’s my man or not. I know, right?! I couldn’t fucking believe it. I buried the rest of the boxes under some cardboard. We can get ‘em in the morning.”

“You’re more competent than you look.”

“Fucking A, I am. Oh, that reminds me.”

He held up a _hush_ finger and dialed a number, switching to English. Crane froze, not even shifting his weight so the floor wouldn’t creak. A cold, corporate-sounding woman filtered through on the other end. Crane could feel his hackles rise; he had bad associations with people that sounded like that. She and Kyle exchanged a few sentences. Then he hung up.

“God, she gives me the creeps. Hey, you’ve met Brecken, right? Do you think it’s him?”

“Your mysterious saboteur that I still think is bullshit?”

“Yeah. His name’s Kadir Suleiman. He’s local, Turkish or Egyptian maybe. Middling skin, black eyes, permanent bitch face, got that beaky Mediterranean nose.”

“Brecken isn’t from around here, he’s Mauri or something. And if he’s holding something over the GRE’s head, he’s got more guts than I credited him for.”

“Do you think I should tell Brecken? About me? Since the GRE has totally and sincerely fucked me. Like, believe me, this is _not_ what I signed up for. What they just told me to do… That’s,” he shook his head slowly, “ _beyond_.”

Crane was quiet for a few long seconds. He still wanted this annoying man dead. But, if he really needed to, that could be managed. “You should. He’s too smart, he’ll find out anyway. And if you jump on the remorse horse—”

“—‘ _Remorse horse’?_ ”

“Shut up. If you throw yourself on his mercy as soon as you can, you’ll seem far more legitimate. You can play both sides off each other, all three of them if you’re really careful, and secure your ticket out of here and into some cozy high-end clinic until the outbreak is eliminated.”

“‘Remorse horse’?”

“Just… get some sleep.”

Kyle was giving him a mischievous expression that he didn’t like. “Well, you know, I just realized. There’s only one sleeping bag.”

He shrugged. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“On this filthy thing? You’ll be cold.”

He shrugged again, more uncomfortably. “I’ve had worse.”

“It’s not that bad, man. We can put the sheet between us or something, if you’re weirded out.”

“Once you’ve seen people take a dump two feet away, not much shocks you.” But he put his back to the wall and started arranging the sheet around his chest. Kyle settled up next to him. Awkwardness or not, it was pretty warm. A scream drifted over from one of the monsters, and he felt Kyle tense.

“Try to rest as much as you can. We’ll need it tomorrow to haul all those boxes.”

Kyle was not an easy person to lie next to. He kept grunting and twisting, probably trying to find a position that wasn’t on his injuries. Crane was finally about to drift off to sleep when an elbow poked his back.

“Hey.”

He was instantly awake like somebody had thrown cold piss on him. “I’m gonna fucking shoot you. What?”

“You know I’m gay, right? Just, thought I’d take the most inconvenient time to tell you, so there isn’t any confusion later.”

Crane just groaned and turned toward the dirty drywall. A second later he was asleep.

Rais’s Den was an apartment complex on the westernmost edge of the slums, near the Wall that divided the Quarantine Zone from the rest of Harran. It was squat like a clenched fist, and heavily reinforced. The coils of razor wire and spiked barricades didn’t do much to keep the dead out, but that wasn’t their purpose; they were there to send a message to the living. Rais’s Talons were uniformly large, bored-looking men armed with rifles, occasionally chewing or smoking. Painted on their armor were three yellow streaks, like claw marks.

Kyle climbed on a nearby van and waved. “Don’t shoot!” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Crane, heavily smeared in zombie blood and guts, blending in with the mass of walkers. “I’m from the Tower!”

“The Tower?” one of the guards said, chuckling. There was raucous laughter. “What are you here for?”

“I’m here to bargain for Antizin.”

The man, his face splattered with yellow and black paint, exchanged amused glances with his sentry buddy, who was wearing a dark green sunhat.

“Alright, this’ll be good. Go on ahead.”

Kyle clambered down onto the hood of the truck, avoiding the mass of clutching zombies. “Thank you,” he said as he hopped over the fence.

The man in the sunhat jerked a thumb. “Through that door.”

It was a large metal door with a vertical bar handle. It said in red paint near one corner, _Thieves beware_. Kyle grabbed it and yanked sideways.

The first thing he saw was drop boxes, dozens of them, being packed with ammo, water, and food, and stacked against one wall. There were no women or children in sight, only beefy men in Talon armor, many of them wearing dog tags. Sounds of target practice echoed from the building to his left. A woman briefly appeared in a basement window, her eyes following him. She didn’t look frightened or in pain. She was holding a baseball bat with nails through it. She took his measure and turned away from the window.

A shirtless man in his mid forties was bent over a map with several subordinates near the middle of the courtyard. They kept their voices low compared to the pop of gunfire and the Talons’ chatter. He was of medium height, hooked nose, probably Turkish. His black hair faded to premature grey near his scalp, suggesting his supply of dye had run out. His bare torso showed off an impressive array of old injuries, but most prominent was the expensive-looking tattoo that covered his entire chest and belly. Now it was horribly disfigured by three long, ropy scars. It looked like he’d been mauled by a bear.

A man with a hooked machete roughly smacked it against Kyle’s chest as he made to step inside. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to see Rais. I want to buy Antizin off of you.”

“Hmph.” The man cracked an unpleasant smile before turning his head, keeping Kyle in his peripherals. “Sir!”

Kyle did his best to keep a neutral expression as Rais straightened up and wiped sweat off his face. It was Suleiman.

“Hmm?”

“There’s some dipshit here wanting to trade for Antizin.”

Rais frowned slightly, then rolled up the map. “He can approach.”

Kyle did so. “I’m Kyle Crane,” he said, acutely aware that he was probably butchering the respectful form. “You’re Rais, right?”

“An American.” Rais leaned on the table. He had the voice of a habitual smoker. His shoulders were sunburned and peeling. “I can barely understand you. What group are you from?”

“I’m from the Tower. Or at least, that’s where I’m currently living,” he added hastily.

Rais gave a dismissive half-laugh. “I should have known only they would have the nerve to come demand it from me. The Tower thinks it is so superior. If you ask Brecken’s lot, we are no better than stinking hunks of meat ourselves. They think somehow they have the secret to immortality figured out. That they are safe, like birds sheltering away.” He spread his hands. “I have no Antizin to give you. I need it for my men, for us poor peasants living down here in the dirt. For the people we have promised protection to. You will have to hold out until the next drop.”

Kyle shook his head. “We can’t wait. It’s dire. We’ve got kids who are going to turn any day now.”

“What can I say? That’s what you get for taking in all that dead weight. Especially the kids. I understand why it’s hard to watch them die. I lost my own kids, you know? But it would have been better. Anything is preferable to living as a parasite. Take the zombies as an example. All they do is eat and eat, until their stomachs burst, but what do they contribute to this city? Perhaps we should start exporting stink and flies? And now you go expanding, pushing up against my territory, driving the dead to my outposts in waves.” The practiced, mild politician’s expression did not disguise the hardness in his eyes. “Not a good time to ask me for a favor.”

“The streets we’ve secured are for everybody. Brecken doesn’t mind if you use them.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” As Rais spoke, he took a knife from a pile of blunt weapons and began sharpening it. Kyle’s eyes followed it warily. “Aldemir’s people don’t go to pavement unless they absolutely have to. They have an aversion to the ground. No, the streets are not for the pretty, frail little birds. They’re for us, and if we use their streets, we cede our own legs. Whether your superiors want to admit it or not, this is a power grab. She can set up ambushes to kill my men, or charge us exorbitant tolls. Our only option is to use alternate routes, and as the Tower claims more land in the center of the Slums, it gets harder and harder to protect our outlying settlements. Leaving them open for some other enterprising businessman to step in and shift their allegiances. And Brecken, I hear he is quite a businessman.”

“Isn’t there some way we can negotiate a truce? Make the streets neutral ground?”

“Ah yes, there it is, that classic American altruism with a rotten core of greed. What’s your consultant’s fee?”

“Man, give me one vial. One, that’s all I’m asking for.”

“With the number of people you have?” Rais gingerly tested the edge of the knife, set it down, and started on another. “That won’t last you three days, and the next drop isn’t until Sunday.”

“Any time is more than these kids have right now. We’ll pay you back.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, we’ll give you ten vials on Sunday. We’ll do runs on your behalf, I don’t know.”

Rais frowned in thought, still sharpening the knife. “Tahir! Give this man five vials of Antizin.”

“Yes, sir!”

Rais sat back a little and looked at Kyle. “Come back tomorrow, when your little nestlings have been satiated. We’ll have some chores for you to do, and consider you fully paid for the Antizin. If Aldemir’s people prove reliable, I might try to work out some kind of deal. But things cannot go on as they are.”

A man in body armor thrust a ragged chunk of foam at him, Antizin sloshing gently inside the bottles. Kyle was hustled away before he could say thank you, and the metal door was slammed shut behind him.

The soldiers whooped as he walked past.

“Here comes Aldemir’s boy, and with all his fingers!”

“Have a nice walk back, asshole!”

He swung over the fence, ignoring them, and pushed his way through the zombies about a block to where the train had derailed on an overpass. Crane was crouched in its shadow, eating a sandwich with a paper napkin so he didn’t smear it with zombie blood.

“How can you eat smelling like that?”

Crane shrugged. “How’d it go?”

“He’s… much more reasonable than Brecken seemed to think he was.”

“He’s a politician. Their business is seeming reasonable while getting everything they want.” He took another bite. “I see you walked out with some Anti.”

“Yeah. I… had to lie a bit. Said there were sick kids.”

“Shit happens.”

Kyle sat down next to him and pulled out the bottles one by one, examining them to make sure they weren’t tampered with. “Hey, you know anything about that scar he has?”

“You got to see him up close and you can’t figure that out? He got slashed by a Volatile. Bastard better be glad it uglied up his chest and not his face. According to rumor, the Volatile used to be his wife, but I wouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

“Damn.” He held up his radio, dialing the code.

His handler was on the other end. “Report.”

“Hey,” he said in English. “My identity is intact. I’ve found Suleiman, he’s calling himself Rais and he’s set himself up this sorta fiefdom of about half a dozen tributaries located around the city. I’ve approached him, he doesn’t seem to know you I — sorry, I mean _who_ I am, and I’m gonna start building up a relationship so I can go in and get that file.”

“Acknowledged. Keep up the good work, Kyle, you’re acting like a real professional. We’ve recently received some information that had given us a big step toward formulating a cure. You just get that file away from Suleiman and make sure he doesn’t have copies hidden anywhere, and as soon as the cure is finished you and everyone else still alive in the Zone can get a ride out of here.”

“Sounds great. One quasi-professional, signing out.”

Crane was finishing up the sandwich. “What did she say?”

“She claims they’re closer to a cure. Fuck if I know if that’s true or not.”

Crane glanced over the top of the traincar, in the direction of the compound.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking for binoculars. Okay, now.” They took off walking down the rails. “I wouldn’t trust Rais until you have that file in your hands. Then you’ll see how reasonable he really is.”

“He thinks we’re trying to for a power grab, set up a Rome situation where we control the roads. Take over.”

“That’s exactly what Brecken _should_ be doing, if he’s smart. It’s not safe to leave a man like Rais any handholds. Just be glad the water mains are outside the Wall, or we’d be biting and pulling hair over them. You didn’t steal anything from him, did you?”

“No! Why does everyone assume the worst of me all the time?”

“Well, you’re an American. It comes naturally. Anyway, if you steal anything from Rais, _don’t_ get caught. He’ll have both your hands cut off and throw you into that Pit he has to get your guts torn out by zombies. His nasty side served him well when he was trying to keep order during the initial outbreak.”

They were crossing the highway now. Kyle clambered up a sign support, over the mass of infected stuck between cars. He could even see dead still belted into their seats. “He sounds like you.”

Crane sounded almost complimented. “He’s too showy. If I caught you stealing I’d just stab you and let you bleed out.”

“Thanks, man, I love you too.”

It was always a relief to climb back into the shadowy cool of the Tower. As usual, the ground floor was a bustle of movement. A group of survivors, Brecken among them, were hauling scavenged inventory up to Storage.

“So, what’d you find?” he asked as they ducked into the elevator, all hauling crates of water bottles. “Hey, Crane.”

Crane nodded curtly. Kyle leaned against the wall, supporting the bottles with one knee as he wiped sweat off the back of his neck. “Rais is definitely my guy. Now I just need to get that document from him and you can all get evacuated.”

Brecken scratched his dirty hair. “Now would not be too soon, you hear? We have families to get back to.”

Crane’s eyes drifted upward briefly.

“I’ll be heading back tomorrow, see if I can get on his good side. I assume he has a good side?”

“Just don’t mouth off and do whatever he wants without a fuss,” said Brecken, shifting his grip on the bottles. “Don’t get personable, that’s my advice to you. He doesn’t like personable.”

“Okay. So, less like me.”

 _Much less like you_ , mouthed Crane.

“You two should check into Storage on the way. We found a whole basement full of new clothes, and half a dozen sewing machines. Enough for everybody, assuming there’s something that fits them. Anyway, it’s first come first serve, so I’d suggest you head over there ASAP.”

Even Crane perked up. Most of the refugees only had one or two sets of clothes, which sometimes made the smell around the Tower a bit pungent. Besides, little luxuries had become immense comforts. New clothes would be… Kyle looked down at his shirt. He actually had lost track of how many days he’d been wearing it. Had he been here two days or three?

“By the way, just a reminder that tonight is Net Night, so charge up your devices beforehand so you can make the most of it. We’ve been getting much better reception since Alfie fixed the antenna. Be sure to thank Aldemir when you see her. She was the one who got him the parts, as well as those UV lightbulbs out front.”

“Will do.”

The hallway in front of Storage was filled wall to wall with clothing racks. Clumps of survivors were eagerly perusing them. Crane held up some jeans and a hooded jacket against himself and draped them over his shoulder.

“Man, what do you want that for, it’s hot as balls out there.”

Crane shrugged. “It’s not that hot. And you’ll be cooler if your skin is covered and you’re sweating a little.”

“Oh, man!” Kyle stooped over a bin and pulled a metal mask, crudely attached to leather straps. Metal bars were welded over the eyes. “Oh, hell, yes.”

“No. It’ll melt itself to your face.” Crane’s tone made it clear he might consider that an improvement.

“I can pad it, it’ll be fine.” Kyle went over to a rack that was clearly holding costumes and pulled out a stars-and-rainbows outfit. He held it up against himself. “What do you think?”

Crane gave it a sardonic pass-over. “You look stupid.”

“Excellent.”

Crane put a hand to his eyes for a second as he started comparing shoe sizes to a bin of tied-together sneakers.

As soon as they got into the bedroom, Kyle immediately started stripping off his clothes. Crane hung awkwardly in the doorway, looking everywhere else. Kyle stopped, now in just his boxers.

“What?”

“I don’t suppose you could do that in the bathroom?”

“What’s the matter all of a sudden? I slept next to you in this much last night.”

“That’s different. We’re in garrison now, it’s… it’s just different. I mean, what if I wanted to bring a woman in here?”

Kyle laughed. “Hey, if you like, need the room, just lemme know. It’s Net Night, apparently, I can plug my laptop in anywhere.”

“But…” said Crane carefully, “what if you were to bring a man in here?”

Kyle stopped, the laughter fading from his face. “Oh, come on, really?”

“So long as I’m not here, I guess I don’t care. I don’t have any problem with dick-sucking, in a hypothetical sense.” He shifted uncomfortably. “There are other things about you I like much, much less.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on blowing anybody in front of you.” Kyle could hear his tone becoming defensive.

“Look, I know everyone’s accepting back in Chicago, but this is Harran. I just mean, I’m not used to this. It being all open or whatever.” His eyes flicked back and forth. “The guys would give me hell if they were here.” He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Yeah, it’s nothing. Just, forget I said anything. We’re not friends anyway.”

Kyle raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Kyle pulled on the outfit. It fit pretty well. Stretchy enough for climbing, not loose enough that a zombie could grab him. He examined himself in the mirror.

“You still look stupid.”

“Oh my god, you’re right. I look amazing.”

“ _No_. No, Kyle, that is _not_ what I—”

“ _Yes_. I look sexy and incredible.”

“You look like a circus performer on some ungodly combination of drugs. Hard, hard drugs.”

“Just wait ‘till I paint this mask. I bet they have latex paint somewhere.”

“ _No, Kyle_.”

“It’s not as though your vibrant personal style goes well with the drapes.”

Crane pulled his duffel bag out of the closet and ignored that.

Kyle had gotten first turn with the fixed boombox, and he put in some CDs he’d found. He danced around in his new clothes while Crane sat on the bed reading. A few tracks in, Crane finally raised his head. “What is she saying?”

“Uh…” Kyle grabbed a notebook and did his best translation, frowning over verbs. Crane took it and chuckled uncomfortably. “My English must not be as good as I thought it was.”

“You speak English?”

“Well, a little. My parents did.”

“What did you _think_ it was?”

Crane’s face went a bit redder, and he muttered, “If you want to be my lover, you gotta get rid of my friends.”

Kyle fell onto the floor laughing. “Yes! Yes, those are the lyrics now! Yes!”

"No..." Crane rubbed at his face, trying not to smile. "No, that’s terrible. I just thought, you liked it, so I expected it to be terrible."

“Yes! Yes!”

“Whatever.” Crane took off the lock and unzipped his bag, folded up his new clothes, and layered them on the bottom. Kyle saw weapons, bottles of water, food, and what looked suspiciously like a vial of Antizin in there.

“Man, are you hoarding shit?”

He pulled out his laptop charger. “Keep your nose on your face.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

Crane laughed humorlessly. “Fuck, no!”

“Do you trust me to deal with Rais tomorrow?”

He hissed out through his teeth. “I suppose so.”

“Then what wouldn’t you trust me to do?”

“You’re just like all the tourists, that’s all. You just don’t _think_.”

“What do you mean, I don’t think? I know I’m American, but I’m not stupid.”

“When you left to go to work yesterday you left the hall door propped. It was like that until I got home.”

“Setting the complaints bar pretty low, aren’t you?”

“Don’t do that again. It’s just not safe. Some dipshit comes by, sees an open door, decides to steal something, rape somebody. You don’t _think_. You literally don’t see what’s around you.”

Kyle brushed down his clothes irritably. “Okay, okay, I get it, I’m not paranoid like you.”

In the hall, the wireless router began to blink blue. There was an audible cheer from the floor below.

“This is not paranoia. It is what it’s like to live in a slum!” Crane’s Harrani accent had become noticeably thicker, and Kyle realized he’d been modulating it for him. “You don’t keep your wits about you, and you’re going to get me killed.”

“Wait, _you_ killed? What about _me_?”

“If you don’t have sense, then fuck you. Stupid people should die. But I don’t want to risk my life in some stunt to save your stupid ass because you dove into an unwinnable situation.”

“Is that really it?”

Crane folded his arms. “Yes.”

“I thought you wanted me dead. And you valued your life above everything else. Why would you ever take a risk for me, then?”

Crane’s fingers worked briefly. “I would kill for a ticket outside.” His eyes met Kyle’s, flat and dead like steel plates sitting in his sockets. Anything recognizably human beneath his face was gone. “Hitching a ride on the GRE’s goodwill for their pet agent seems like my best bet. If they can get you out of the Quarantine Zone, I’m going to make sure I’m going too, or no one is. And if they won’t take you, then we were all fucked from the very beginning.”

“Fine,” said Kyle, plugging in his laptop. “I’ll try not to disappoint you when I go back to Rais tomorrow.”

“I’ll be stuck outside, so I hope you don’t.”

Kyle put in his headphones and told himself it was going to be okay.


End file.
